1. Field of the Invention
The invention, in general, relates to fire panels for enclosing fire alarm and/or fire control electronics and more particularly to a fire panel having a door which lends itself to ease of servicing side-by-side panels.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Fire panels, which are generally rectangular electrical boxes enclosing the electronics for fire alarm systems, fire control systems or similar systems for emergencies or security purposes are well-known in the art. Generally, the front side of such a box is covered by a door which opens wide to provide access for installation, programming, servicing or manual operation of the system.
Fire control systems are generally divided into zones with perhaps a few to a few hundred zones in a system depending on the size of the building. If there are more than about a dozen zones, it is usually necessary to have several fire panels in a system. In large buildings there may be ten or more panels mounted together on a wall. Often several of the panels need to be serviced simultaneously in order to properly discover problems or for efficiency. In this case, the open door of one panel may obstruct access to a neighboring panel that is being serviced. Thus, it is desirable that the panel door cover be movable to avoid such obstruction. One method that has been used in the prior art to avoid such obstruction is to make the door of the panels removable. However, because doors that are removable may become lost with the result that live electrical circuits controlling critical emergency equipment are left exposed, the Underwriters Laboratories (UL) regulations require that the doors either not be removable, or that the circuits are deactivated upon removal of the doors. Deactivation itself may be a problem during servicing. Thus, it would be desirable to have a fire panel with a door that is not removable, yet may be moved to prevent obstruction of adjacent panels when the door is open.